Usually I am not given to the hoopla that sometimes surround the latest “in” movie. However, I just watched an incredible film (those in the biz call them “films”) that I plan to see again. It is a foreign film set in 1938 India about the awful treatment women had to endure if they should have the misfortune of losing their husbands. It was directed by a well-known Indian artist named Deepa Mehta. It is entitled “Water”. It completes a trilogy, the others being “Fire” and “Earth”.
It’s a story about an eight-year old child who finds herself banished to an ashram to live out her life after being widowed. Her father wakes her and says, “Chuiya, do you remember getting married?” “No, Father.” “Well, you did and now your husband is dead so you are a widow.” “For how long, Father?” And off they go to deposit this child into this hellish arena to live out her life. She finds a very large collection of women, all shapes, sizes, and ages. They have all accepted their fate but have done so begrudgingly. “I must keep myself pure according to God’s law because my bastard husband died on me!”
“In Hindu, the holy scriptures tell us that a woman without her husband is half a person. There are three options available to her; one, she can choose to be burned with her dead husband to preserve the sanctity of his soul;, two, the wife can live in the ashram, keeping herself pure, living without color while mourning the loss of her husband; or, three, the husband’s younger brother can choose to take her as his wife thus sparing her of a humiliating existence.”
To realize that even today we have examples of unbelievable cruelty that we cast upon one another is just too much for me to bear. The things people do in the name of God or religion that robs us of our human dignaty is, as my ex-wife would say “beyond the beyond”. How can we not be outraged by such acts? I don’t mean this to be an indictment of the Hindi beliefs, I really don’t. Most of us have contributed to the world’s ills in one way or another. How about how we treat the homeless? How about the disdain we show when a person has the audacity to speak his mind and, horror of horrors, he doesn’t agree with us? How dare he! I am outraged!
Whoa…now that’s called getting off on a tangent. I’ll stop now. Sorry.
“Love is but a song we sing
and fear’s the way we die,
You can make the mountains ring
or make the angels cry,
Tho’ the bird is on the wing
and you may not know why.
C’mon people, now
smile on your brother,
ev’ry-body get together,
try to love one another right now.
Some will come and some will go
and we shall surely pass
When the one that left us here
returns for us at last
We are but a moments sunlight
fading in the grass.
C’mon people, now
smile on your brother,
ev’ry-body get together,
try to love one another right now.
If you hear the song I sing
you will understand
You hold the key to love and fear
in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both,
it’s there at your command.
C’mon people, now
smile on your brother,
ev’ry-body get together,
try to love one another right now.”
- by the Youngbloods (ah, the sixties)
I’ve just gone off the deep-end! Man, that’s some hokey shit!
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